family dinner and a walk to Bethlehem

Good morning! I am writing to you from my dinning room table as I sip coffee out of my Christmas mug and enjoy the fact that Daddy is on bath duty this time.

Oh how I am in the Christmas mood now! I think it's fair to say that yesterday was the beginning to Christmas around here. With my mom visiting from Prince Edward Island and us having a relatively quiet weekend at home, it's been just a perfect beginning to the holiday season.

Yesterday to the soundtrack of Sarah McLachlan's Christmas album and Vince Guaraldi's Charlie Brown's Christmas, I decorated the tree while my mom baked a cake to take to my aunt's house for dinner. Earlier in the day we went to the Harbour Diner for breakfast. Then later in the afternoon we drove the 45 min drive to Milton to have dinner with my 2 aunts, my aunt's partner+her son, and my grandmother. We had a delicious dinner of ham, scalloped potatoes, green beans with roast almonds, a large salad and Mrs. Cosman's (a chocolate cake. Then we bundled ourselves up, hats, mittens, scarves and a snow suit for Noah and went to Milton's Walk to Bethlehem.

This was our first time doing the Walk to Bethlehem, so I can't quite tell you how long it's been going on for but I think its safe to say its been happening for a while now. It took place in a lovely village of historic buildings from the 1800s.

As I was told, many churches (of different denominations) work together to organize 3 nights of the Christmas story reenactments. The walk took us through the story of Mary being visited by an angel and being told she would carry Jesus as well as Joseph being visited by an angel and being told he would be the husband of Mary. There were live animals, donkeys, lamas and a camel. We stopped by King Herod's place but he was in a bad mood...go figure.

We almost made it to see the baby Jesus but a little baby of our own had quite enough and we decided to call it quits. We jumped on a lit up tractor pull and huddled close and made to the parking lot. As Winslow and I drove home we commented on all the houses that have their lights up already. I must say, it really was a magical night.